erection hardened.
“I’d prefer Mrs. Cresswell-Smith, though,” he whispered over my lips.
“Martin—” I grew wet and hot in my groin. He kissed harder, opening my mouth. The idea sank talons into my heart as he cupped me between the legs, parted my folds, inserted a finger. I could barely breathe—“Let’s . . . let’s do it.”
“What?” he murmured against my mouth.
I pulled away. “Get married. Chapel—I saw it downstairs. The Second Chance Chapel next to the Second Chance Casino.”
His jaw dropped. “Wha—”
“Now! Let’s do it right now. Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell-Smith!” I was positively busting with the idea bubbling up inside me. Intoxicated with it. “Think about it, Martin—it was a sign last night—Second Chance Casino? Where we won big. So why the hell not tie the knot, cement this team thing. Go to Australia as true partners. Why should we not both get a second chance at love? Why not take the gamble? I’m divorced. You’ve just ended a long-term relationship. Why shouldn’t we score this time around?”
He forcefully shoved me backward onto the bed. I bounced against the mattress and my nightgown fell open. He dropped his towel and leaned over me, opening my thighs. And he took me in a way that was more ferocious and animal than that first night in the elevator. I matched him thrust for hungry thrust, my fingers and nails digging into his flesh with a surprising force of my own, the aggression just driving me higher until I climaxed with a cry, and he came, and we both fell back on the bed laughing, panting. Spent. Sticky and sweaty and delirious with my idea. The sun burst over the horizon and gold light exploded into the room.
By lunch we’d bought rings—his a platinum band inset with a ruby, mine a simple platinum band. And we’d filled in all the requisite forms. By that evening Martin and I stood in front of a legally ordained wedding officiant, as promised by the Second Chance Chapel website. Our “rush package” included a “fresh floral bouquet,” which I clutched in front of me. A photographer snapped photos, which he would give to us in “high-resolution JPEG files with a copyright release” so we could easily print them off to frame later. We opted out of the live online broadcast, preferring to break our news to friends and family in person later.
“Forasmuch as you, Ellie Tyler and Martin Cresswell-Smith, have consented to join in wedlock, and have before witnesses and this company pledged vows of your love and faithfulness to each other, and have declared the same by joining hands, and by the exchange of rings, I now therefore, by the authority vested in me by the State of Nevada, pronounce you wed. Congratulations! You may now kiss the bride!”
We kissed. The camera flash popped. Silver confetti rained down from the ceiling and swirled around us with the aid of a fan. I laughed. I felt deliriously happy.
Just after midnight we boarded a red-eye for Canada as husband and wife, a new marriage certificate in hand and plans for Australia in our hearts. I’d already sent an email asking to meet with my dad’s lawyers.
THE WATCHER
A red dot pulsed on the computer monitor. The app installed on the cell phone was broadcasting their GPS location. They’d landed at YVR. The Watcher stared at the dot for a few moments in the dimly lit room, a glass of whiskey in hand, then leaned over and clicked on a desk lamp.
A halo of yellow light fell upon a pile of news articles that had been printed off the net. Amazing what a well-rounded and intimate psychological profile the World Wide Web could yield if the target had not been overly careful, or had lived a relatively public life. In this case—for a period—it had been a very public life.
Hartley Grandchild in Fatal Drowning Accident
Hartley Heiress Suffers Mental Breakdown
Daughter of Sterling Hartley Stabs Husband in Restaurant
Ellie Tyler Arrested
Hartley Heiress Divorces
Some of the raunchier tabloids featured photos of an overweight and disheveled Ellie Tyler covering her head with a jacket as police led her out of a Vancouver restaurant. Blood spattered the jacket. Another showed an unflattering image of a haggard and very overweight Ellie Tyler under a headline that read:
Court-Ordered Addiction Counseling for Hartley Heiress
Trust-Fund Daughter Spirals into Booze, Pills, Depression
One tabloid had captured Sterling Hartley and a Swedish girlfriend rushing through an airport after hearing that his daughter had been hospitalized.
In a kinder Vogue magazine feature titled “A Mother’s